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Sony axes PR staff, accusations company is "sending titles out to die" leveled

Will Powers, a former Sony employee, has revealed that Sony Computer Entertainment America has fired the entire San Diego-based public relations team, and is accusing the company of sending games like LittleBigPlanet Karting, Sports Champions 2 and Wonderbook: Book of Spells"out to die".

Powers accused, “You have to wonder what the hell PlayStation was thinking laying off more than half of their software PR team going into the holiday season. In typical fashion they’re sending titles out to die, because they have no PR support – LBPK, Sports Champions 2, Wonderbook."

He went on to bemoan, “Worst part is, the PR department was already under-staffed. I feel sorry for those that remain there, because their workload just doubled. PR is non-revenue generating, but has a very low operating cost in relative terms to their results.

“Laying off to cut costs makes no sense. Already, they outsourced entirely too much work to overpriced agencies, so laying off is only going to exacerbate an existing problem. The point of having external agencies is so that you can scale back without layoffs, not layoff so you can ramp-up. Internal PR teams have product loyalty and only serve one master. Neither can be said about agencies, although there are some select people.

“That being said, you have to question the priorities of the company as a whole. Sony in general is serving too many masters. Each company should operate autonomously. PlayStation shouldn’t suffer because TVs are overpriced. This is all being said, because I genuinely like and care about the PS product, but they’re being hamstrung from success internally.”

Powers deleted the tweets, with the reasoning that they had “served their purpose” and “reached their intended audience."